Video communications give a personal touch that is simply not available from audio only telephone communications. Participants in a video call have a greater personal presence and also are able to share presentations and data in a more meaningful manner than is available with audio only communications. Indeed, businesses have invested substantial sums in video devices to take advantage of the more personal communication provided by video calls. As a result, video calls have grown as a more common manner of communications, both for intra company meetings and meetings with outside businesses conducted through public networks.
Unfortunately, configuring, scheduling and establishing a video call is a complex process beyond the expertise of most users of video devices. For instance, manufacturers of video devices typically include unique interfaces accessed through video endpoints that are complex and difficult to use. Even if a user becomes accustomed to a user interface of a give manufacturer, user interfaces of endpoints by different manufacturers are often substantially different so that users typically need to relearn video call configuration and set-up with each user interface. Assuming that a user is able to successfully interact with a video end point user interface, other complexities remain as an obstacle to a successful video call configuration. With multi-endpoint video calls of three endpoints or more, the user must typically route the video call through a multi-call unit (MCU). As another layer of complexity, if video devices communicate over different protocols, such as H.323 and H.320, then the user typically must route the video call through a gateway device.
In addition to configuring a video call through different types of video devices made by different manufacturers, users seeking to configure a video call also must typically schedule the video devices so that they are available at the desired time of the video call. Companies typically delegate scheduling functions to technical staff who reserves devices and bandwidth for desired line speed for the video call. As video call technology advances, the scheduling of devices has grown more complex. For instance, video devices may include specially manufactured MCU and gateway devices or may include MCU and gateway devices provided by internet protocol servers with the video calls routed as TCP/IP packets. Thus, a video call between a large number of users may include a variety of specially manufactured video devices and internet-based video devices with an array of bandwidth and latency considerations that may affect video call quality. Further, to obtain optimal quality individual characteristics of video devices typically must be considered. Conventional user interfaces for video devices are generally not able to take these factors into consideration, thus making the involvement of qualified technical staff a necessity that slows the process of establishing video calls and adds to the cost of making video networking available.